In today’s progression I’m making use of a capo (at the 3rd fret), allowing me to use those vibrant open chord forms in a higher key.

This is a much longer sequence than on previous days as I wanted to show you how to take your progression on more of a journey. Saying that, the progression doesn’t stray too far from its “home” G major tonic chord.

Take a listen to the chord sequence and I’ll highlight some key features further down the page…

So, the first thing you’ll notice is that I only use 4 string chords throughout the entire progression, with the exception of that lush major 13th tonic chord at the end. With most of these chord forms, you can use more strings if you want, such as the B and high E strings, but sometimes it’s more effective to keep the chord voicings tight, which can allow you to pick out a more defined harmony.

Another feature of this progression is it’s weighted more towards the lower strings, but since there’s a capo raising the pitch of these chords, you get the warmth of the thicker wound strings but in a coherent register.

This piece is also an example of just letting the natural tuning of the guitar do most of the work – using open strings to colour the harmony and therefore minimising the use of your fret fingers. I say minimising… you can use those freed up fingers to add in lead phrases around these static chords and create something quite a lot more complex.